From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Assignments (16)—Social and Cultural Theory: Final Essay


[a] Society RF
This is the last assignment for the Social and Cultural Theory course. Students have written a wide variety of papers, and engaged the study of social and cultural theory from several angles. Their task in this assignment is to explain something in detail...and to use "theory."

Social and Cultural Theory 
Anthropology 206
Final Paper 
Using Theory and Explaining Stuff
[b] Explaining RF
The Shorthand Version
1. Explain something. 
2. Use theory. 
3. Show how it helps to understand the subject more deeply.
3,000 words (minimum).
Due by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 17, 2013. 
Electronic copy (.pdf preferable) required.

Possible Format A  
1. Explain something in detail, using “thick description” techniques. 
2. Add a theoretical “appendix” discussing how the reader might deepen her understanding. 
3. Show how it helps to understand the subject more deeply.
Possible Format B 
1. Explain something in detail, using “thick description” techniques and integrating
theoretical perspectives as you proceed. 
2. Add a succinct conclusion that explicitly… 
3. …shows how your theoretical perspective helps to understand the subject more deeply.

Possible Format C 
1. Masterfully blend all elements together in a striking narrative form (previously unimagined) that will be anthologized in theory readers and read by students like you for generations. What if you knew you were writing a classic?

Summary 
1. Explain something in detail. 
2. Use “theory.” 
3. Explain why it—the explanation and the theory—matters.

Sorry—it’s really that straightforward.
We’ll discuss strategies briefly in class, but this is a serious assignment, and is meant to make you reflect upon your approach to social and cultural theory. It only seems “glib” and lighthearted. I could write ten pages of detail for the assignment, but this is really all you need...without clutter.
[d] Pathways RF
 

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